Catalyst Corporate Finalizes Western Bridge Consolidation

The $2.9 billion Catalyst Corporate Federal Credit Union announced July 3 it has completed its consolidation with Western Bridge Corporate. The weekend of June 30, Catalyst Corporate took the final successful steps in the conversion process, including transferring core systems, billing, wire services and Internet connectivity.

“Each phase of this very complex conversion process has gone smoothly,” said Catalyst Corporate President/CEO Kathy Garner. “Because of the efforts of the integration teams at both corporates, we are well-positioned to provide the full Catalyst value proposition to each of the 315 Western Bridge members that transitioned to Catalyst as capitalizing members, and to serve the needs of all Catalyst members well into the future.”

Over the past several months, Catalyst Corporate transitioned services such as ACH, remote deposit and check processing for former Western Bridge members. As a result of the item processing transition, Catalyst Corporate’s daily check processing volume jumped from approximately 420,000 items per day in April to an approximate average of nearly 700,000 items per day during June, and included one day when Catalyst Corporate processed more than 1.2 million checks.

Catalyst also converted 57 credit unions to its ACH origination service and 135 credit unions to its ACH receipt service. And in early May, 81 Western Bridge member credit unions, holding a total of almost 4,000 securities, were transitioned onto Catalyst’s new safekeeping system.

“This has been the smoothest transition/conversion/data move that we have experienced in more than three years. And we have been through about four now,” said Renee Robertson, vice president of finance for the $50 million PrimeSource Credit Union in Spokane, Wash. “I really appreciated all the pre-planning that you (Catalyst) put into the transition. And the training was easy to follow and available for reference whenever we needed to review it.”

Garner lauded the efforts of credit unions during the process.

“A lot of paperwork and preparations had to be handled at the credit union level. But hundreds of Western Bridge members took the opportunity to participate in Catalyst’s scheduled training. This engagement, combined with Catalyst’s efforts to handle as much of the conversion as possible behind-the-scenes, allowed the transition to take place without any serious snags.”

David Shelter, deputy director of the NCUA’s Office of Corporate Credit Unions, said during the regulator’s June video economic update that Western Bridge would close its doors for good following a successful transition of members to Catalyst Corporate.